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ie Settlement of lews in GENERAL JAMES OGLETHORPE * * * O N the 10th dav of July, 1733. there rode the harbor of Savannah a tiny vessel con taining a handful of Jewish immigrants from England. After considerable opposition from the directors of the company holding the Royal charter, permission had been obtained by them to brave the terrors of an unknown land. It was by no means the first pilgrimage of this migrating people, nor their first quest for home and religious liberty. They had dwelt in many lands and had been accustomed by a Providential decree to pull up stakes and move on to other countries at various times, following a precedent established in the remote antiquity of their history when the patriarch from whom they traced spirit ual lineage had been told to get him “out of his lather’s house and the lands of his nativity” and -u forth to a new world, that he might serve ( >od and man as he thought best. N 'o\v in the unfolding of time this same people migrated westward again and the quest of their pilgrimage was a lengthened echo of the edict de- c ared unto Abraham of old, w ith this exception— hese immigrants W’ere refugees from ferocious fanaticism, escaped from the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal in the very century the new conti nent was discovered by one who may have been ‘heir religious kinsman. For there is a well-sus- ’am-al impression that Columbus w r as a marrano, or v ' vret Jew*. These people are now’ seeking to O'tahlish a home in the pine forests of the new' continent: Portuguese and Spanish Jew’s from u ln< ^ W ^° were but recently refugees from H' and. They came at their own expense in a . P they chartered—in contrast to another group °t immigrants who were shipped to this country ' Parity wards of James Oglethorpe, w’hose * mthropy aimed to relieve the congestion of led London in his day, and Charles Dickens aT pted it a century and more later. his group of German Jews, sponsored by s Oglethorpe, and the other band of immi- “ s previously mentioned, constituted the first * rs °f the colony legalized by charter into 1773-1865 By Joseph Leiser . EDITOR’S SOTE—Rabbi Joseph Leiser is the spir itual leader of (.ongregation Children of Israel, in Augusta, Oa. Rabbi I.eiser's leadership, however, is not limited to his congregation. He is well liked and respected by non-Jews and Jews alike. He is the type of leader that is gaining for the Jews of the South and the nation the respect of their fellow citiuens. * what is now the State of Georgia two hundred years ago. Among those who landed on the soil of Georgia at that date were Benjamin Sheftall and his wife, Dr. Nunis, Isaac Henneriques, David Cohen and Abraham DeLyon. The entire list is still preserved but these names are cited on account of MRS. HARRY M. GERSHON ^ Honored with an appointment as a member of the Commission’s Advisory Committee for the Georgia Bicentennial dent of tolerance. The colony which he had founded was not to be marred by continuance of that discrimination against the Jewish people which had prevailed since Calvary. Georgia w-as to be open to all settlers, regardless of their re ligious differences. It is not likely that a fitting tribute has been paid to this warm-hearted, gen erous man on the score of his humanity. But it is in keeping with the elevation of his spirit and his noble impulses that the newly arrived immi grants seeking here the haven of refuge promised in the new w’orld, were not barred from Georgia. Or perhaps sent upon another exile in unknown lands of North’ America to continue their endless pilgrimage, driven from pillar to post through the ages. Oglethorpe included the names of a half dozen of the new arrivals as grantors in a conveyance executed December 21, 1733, of town lots, gar dens, farms, in that territory now r covered by Savannah and the territory immediately adjacent. Another factor must also be taken into account in the rapid survey of this pre-revolutionary era which was the beginning of the settlement of the Jews in this state. Atten tion has been called to the two bands of immigrants both from London, con sisting in one instance of Spanish Portuguese refu gees w’ho had means to pay for their own trans portation, and the other group of Ashkenazic or German Jews w’ho were wards of charity, sent here as a means of reliev ing the distress of that day in England. These two groups came here about the same time, July, 1733. It is said that they differed on three counts: Origin, wealth and land. A difference of sufficient importance to is olate one group from the other for several decades. The Ashkennazic group founded their congrega-, tion Mickva Israel in Sa vannah a few years later, in 1735, and that con gregation is still in existence, having the proud distinction of being among the oldest of Jewish congregations in the South. In Newport and New York and in Pennsylvania are older Jewish congregations. But with the exception of Beth Elohim of Charleston, Mickve Israel is among the oldest in the Southland. later developments in which these men or their immediate descendants became conspicuous. Not to antici pate, the Sheftall branch numbered a very outstanding person, Mordecai Sheftall, of whom more will be said presently. Originally from Bavaria, he joined the immigrants in London who were among that shipload dis patched to this country as a philan thropic measure by Oglethorpe and M. STEPHEN SCHIFFER Publisher of The Southern’ Israelite was appointed by Governor Eugene Talmadge as a I’ice-President of the Honorary Committee of the Georgia Bicentennial, of which Honorable Franklin Delano Roosevelt is President. members of the Board of Trustees of the colony in London. Religious fanatics, however, protested against this humane measure and some of the London Trustees were opposed to the settlement of Jews in the young colony. But the discordant elements w’ere soothed by the intervention of Oglethorpe, who made peace with the trustees and the In dians also. Each settler was allowed his portion of land. One of them, the forementioned Dr. Nunis, was especially commended to the attention of the trustees because he was a physician and of invaluable service to the early settlers on account of his professional attainments in the wilderness of that pioneer period. Let us therefore not over look the chivalrous intervention of Gen. Ogle thorpe in setting from the very beginning a prece At this same time there came to Georgia a group of venturesome settlers from the Salzberg region of Germany with whom the German Jew ish pioneers fraternized freely, attending their services which were conducted in German for the sole purpose of hearing again their mother tongue —an evidence of the emotional value of language. For it is on the score of religion that the Jews differ chiefly from their fellowmen. In custom, habits and point of view r of his environment he is at one w’ith his fellowman. He is psychologi cally at one with his surroundings as Anita Lib- man Lebeson contends in her book on “The Jewish Pioneers of America,” from whose researches much of the material set forth in this survey has been gleaned. There is another fact (Please turn to page 13) T: £ SOUTHERN ISRAELITE *